Thoughts from the Kitchen, by Way of the Stars

I hold his little body flush against my chest, switching the arm underneath him as I move through mundane tasks. One-handed, I put a filter in the coffee pot, measure the grounds and pour the water... rinse the utensils and put them in the dishwasher... replace the butter in the fridge and pull out the half and half. We do our everyday dance across the kitchen, and my heart breaks.


 My heart breaks for the reality that he is NOT the center of my universe, even though his 18-month-old self would will that to be true. It's immutable. He has to learn to share my focus... and to know he has ENOUGH, even when he doesn't have it ALL, RIGHT NOW.


My head says it would be to the child's detriment if I rearranged everything to revolve around him -- but it breaks my heart, all the same. To know how much happier he would be, every day, if I simply did everything he wanted, right when he wants it. How much more laughter we would have in our house, how many fewer tantrums and wails and snot and tears. How I cannot bend to his very small, very tiny will. I doubt myself; I question, repeatedly. On the best days I assess I'm doing OK. But what a daily crush of the spirit.


 My hearts breaks for how frustrated he is when he thinks he's said a thing, and what comes out is incomprehensible. Even to his mama. How he rails against my misunderstanding. He acts as if I'm willfully getting it ALL.WRONG.ON.PURPOSE! No matter how many times I patiently say, "I don't understand, baby. Can you say the word again? ...Say it again, please!" Then, when I lose all patience -- because he's already melting down on the bathroom rug, flinging his head against the tile floor and swearing in that tiny person way they curse without any cursing schema -- my heart breaks for both of us. I walk away. I "shake it off." Some days I yelp in psychic pain. But it all hurts.


 My heart breaks for how much MORE he has to learn. And how HARD learning is. Such large leaps he's making, all the time. And, still, thousands of thoughts and small experiences lie ahead to be processed, incorporated, put together and accepted. One day his emotions will allow me to do the ordinary things (make his toast, get dressed) without an outburst or complete breakdown. I have never mothered a child with bigger wants or deeper needs at this stage of life. ...And the older two were no picnic for their first four years, I might point out. But this one goes beyond. He cries for more food when his mouth is full of food. He screams and throws things when he is currently GETTING WHAT HE WANTS -- but isn't getting an excess of what he wants. He cajoles and manipulates and demands and loves and adores us, all in the same interaction. He is -- I say it with grudging respect and deep reverence for how this kid is made -- a piece of work. And it nearly breaks me, completely, every day.


I wonder, idly, waiting for the coffee to perk or the last minute of a wash cycle to complete, why I don't run away? Why I haven't given up? I won't. I'm pretty sure. ;) But the "why" is not always clear. Is it because I'm missing some logic gene that says, "cut your losses, already, lady!" Am I too stubborn to quit mothering? Too idealistic? (Fourteen years in, how could that even be?!)


 It's God, I figure. The God who set the stars in motion, who moved across the deep and ordered the chaos. He who first imagined growing things, seeds and seasons and cycles of life... That God holds me in place the same way He keeps the planets in orbit.


 He does it by imagining me, too.  Me at my beginning; me at my best.   That giant God of the Universe?  He helped form me, and he notices me, too. Even now. In my kitchen with a snotty, emotionally exhausted little boy heavy in my arms. He knows me and he loves me. And that love won't let me go.


 So I hang on. I stay in orbit. I spin and I dance, every day, a sentient Heavenly body set in a Milky Way of small obstacles. I spin and sometimes I collide. Battered, I keep moving.


 All the while, I hold in cupped palms this tiny, little life currently full of broken bits and temper tantrums. A fragile treasure of not only beautiful things, but also of disappointed expectation, of tears and struggle and sometimes terrible behavior. (Mine and the baby's!) In this life, in this time, I, too, throw things. The words of my prayers and heart are often unintelligible, at cross purposes to my truest self, and still, I yell at the Father for my own misunderstanding. I am such a baby, sometimes. 


Yet I keep at it, folding one more load of clothes, signing one more sheet of paper and straightening one more fallen thing before bed, because I believe this is the life designed for me. Even when I'm messing it up and taking the best parts for granted, I know enough not to leave my orbit... which is four other people so perfectly fitted to who I am, what I can give, and what the world needs.


When I put my head outside this season and look down upon it -- frazzled, fractured days of great needs and tight scheduling; of difficult relationships in the nearest places, ones that fail to nurture me, and that I fail to nurture; a calling that comes with huge emotional weight -- I tend to visualize myself in the bleakest, rockiest of meteor fields.


 But when I draw that picture, I'm forgetting how many shiny things litter the Milky Way. Sure, there's a chance they're just prettier rocks I'll still dash against.  But maybe, maybe... when I glimpse an awe-inspiring flash of some sparkling OTHER beyond this everyday, I'm seeing stars not birthed yet. Seeds of things yet to be. Maybe the God who set everything in motion and filled creation with extravagance and plots good things in good time, is RIGHT HERE, still, offering His abundance and grace for all who receive his notice and stop their pity party long enough to LOOK UP.


 ...When I hold a needy little boy in my kitchen, and dance, and allow my heart to break, it does feel like maybe there's more, and better, to come.

The Last Pacifier

It's that time again. Time to sweep through the house for the few minutes that passes for "cleaning." (Papers will get shuffled. Pillows will get fluffed. Very occasionally, beds will be fully made. There is a known state of "tidy" around here, but there is no actual, deep-down clean... For, like, 2 years. Judging? I had a surprise 3rd baby at 42. Just ignore than spider web and move on, citizen.)


 So I'm making a pass through my bedroom, holding stacks of unsent graduation cards and piles of corrected homework, wondering what gets prioritized, what recycled, and where I'm currently keeping the "2016-17 To Save" pile? Then I notice ... in the far right cubby of the secretary desk... and I sigh. "It's still there.


"Another round of indecision," I think. "I can't deal with this today." It is perhaps the most daily stress of the mothering life I did not choose: all these daily decisions that need making at warp speed. Though it's my core personality to assess in the moment, to make a gut decision, to DO AS I GO, I seem to have completely lost that ability.


 I can't weigh what has lasting importance in the moment. I know I'm not the clearest thinker right now, and since all I have is the moment, I spend mine in a mental state of freeze-frame. I overthink, re-think, backtrack, sidetrack or sign off all non-emergency decision-making.


 The object that has me dead stopped and perseverating is a blue plastic Soothie. The pacifier sent home with us from the hospital in March 2015. Our third son, Lucas, never really took to pacifiers, of any sort. So this is hardly a well-worn item or a thing of deep emotional attachment. I've already given away or sent to consignment the adorable Wubba-Nubba -- a paci attached to a tiny stuffed animal; the clever mustache pacifier; the set matching our bottles; AND the pair I registered for, with their sweet, printed fabric holders.


 This, then, is the last pacifier.


 My "baby" is 18 months old today, and I cannot seem to file this pacifier away. Is it a recyclable or a keepsake? I don't know. But it is a token, and maybe a talisman. Sign of something that shocked and rocked us, but that we survived. I still cringe a little when I think about the baby days. The sweetness and wonder, sure, but also the struggle. So deep, and from so early on. The first days back at work, cotton-headed and forgetful, always rushing, always dragging, never sure I was where I was supposed to be. That string of evenings -- weeks of them -- marked by colickiness only running water could resolve. The pain and the blood and the fevers that came with breastfeeding. The painful decision to stop. The fight not to judge myself, every day. The crying, crying, crying of that tiny little boy... when I left, when I came back. And even in so many camera-worthy moments I was afraid to exhale, because what if I let down my guard and the fussing fired up?


 I hold the humble pacifier and it all floods me. I find I cannot look away.


 It's thorny stuff, this motherhood. Every time I think I get a handle on it, I'm pretty much rocked by some new and unexpected wave of deepest emotion. And maybe the most bizarre part is how little those internal tsunamis show on the outside.


 I have no idea, frankly, if I've done enough for Lucas so far. Have I been enough? Loved enough? I am beset by doubts deeper than any I have known as a mother. But whether I failed or succeeded in his babyhood, those days are not coming back. It's time, as Elisabeth Elliott says, to do the next thing.


 We are making progress as a family. Maybe not every day. But across the days. We are meeting the boy's needs and reducing his drama. Slowly. Sacrificing-ly. Surely. And that pacifier is not where we are today. The Soothie is of days gone by. The "Time for Sleep" book, Woody and Bullseye, the Beanie Baby puppies -- those are the things of today. And -- though it still has its struggles, very real and none too healthy -- today is not yesterday.


 I didn't have the strength to trow away the Soothie this morning, but tonight I think I will. I think I'm ready not to hold so tight to ALL the things. To leave some space -- and grace -- for more recent and better things. When the box of Baby Lucas memories gets packed, I want a plastic cowboy inside. I want ALL the board books he teethed on. His "mankie" and his little leather moccasins. Maybe a nightgown and some teeny pajamas with back pockets and pastel-colored raindrops. But no pacifiers. He wasn't a baby to be pacified, anyway.

Enough Self-Help. Gimme Soul Help.

It might be the start of a new school year, with all the complications 2 work schedules + 3 kid schedules bring; or it might be the end of one busy season pushed flush into the start of another. Might be any number of things, but I've been cranky lately. And everything else I say today should probably be filtered through that lens.

BUT! I'm about done with motivational quotes.  At least for a while. No more inspiring lines or witty slogans for me, thanks. I'm trying to cut back on BEING THE BEST SELF I CAN BE.

And I normally eat up this wordy, nerdy stuff. Soak it all in and find it a board on my Pinterest. So I will probably always be drawn to a thoughtful quote and some well-formed words.

...It's just that these dang, misleading, paper-thin, skin-deep messages are popping up everywhere, and I'm afraid most of them are not actually as helpful as intended.
(And I think I'd know! Because -- again -- if they worked, they would work on me. I am a total sucker for motivation. Happy thoughts. Cheerful manipulation!)

They sure LOOK pretty, these thoughts that our friends post in those regulation, Instagram-size boxes with professional photo backgrounds (or watercolors, or jewel-toned fractals, or gold dots) and in custom cursive fonts. They SEEM to make sense -- maybe even offer a breakthrough of sorts?

But they are a mirage. A pretty, pretty mirage. A cloudy lens through which we are not seeing ourselves or our place in the firmament clearly. They are all about the SELF... and they are dry, dry tonics for the SOUL.

Here are a couple of my LEAST favorite "pretty picture quotes" from social media of late -- and some Oscar the Grouch thoughts on what makes them such dangerously cracked logic.

"Believe; it's as simple as that."
Obviously not. Not even close. I believe in Jesus, my marriage, my children, the institution and high-minded experiment that is America... and NONE of these beliefs have remained simple or easy, even if they started out that way. None have failed to be questioned. All have required more of me, to sustain belief, than simply choosing to believe.
Oh, that's in there. But then I've had to ACT on my beliefs, to prove them true. It's sometimes no fun at all, this process of growing up. But it comes with the consolation prize of perspective, which is a nice way to say that, too often, simple "beliefs" = unquestioned, uncritical beliefs -- and those have amazingly shallow roots. They wither in any kind of weather.
King David said "taste and see." My favorite father from Mark 9 said "I believe; help me in my unbelief." One of them was anointed by God and the other was talking directly to Jesus. Belief is essential -- but ain't nothin' simple about it.

"Forget all the reasons it won't work and believe the one reason it will."
OK. Just for hypothetical kicks... Mother of boys speaking here... If GRAVITY is one of the several reasons your idea won't work, but "it sure would be cool" is the one reason it will... you need to stop reasoning and slowly climb down from the tree. Again... just hypothetically speaking.

And my personal nemesis of the week: "Distractions are the enemy of greatness."
Yeah. I read that recently.

And it might be so.

But ya' know what else we normal folks, NOT on a constant climb to greatness, call "distractions?" PEOPLE. Yep; all the OTHER PEOPLE we have to live with and might choose to interact with. Most all of whom need a little kindness on the everyday level. Some of whom need exactly what we have to offer. If we allow ourselves the occasional Holy Interruption.

Children are my personal distractions. (Not just my own. I also work with kids.) And I've come to see those "distractions" as some of the finest moments God gives me, as a gift, to correct my course. Children interrupt me, yes, all the time. They sidetrack my teaching moments and my best laid plans. They wiggle off task and take me down rabbit holes. And, ultimately, that's A-OK.

Because often I get too self-important, or too self-involved, or too self-sufficient and, turns out, a little distraction is usually what I need to shift my perspective and point me right back to God.

The way I see it, distractions aren't the pesky parts we're unable to edit out of our best-plotted, most-improved lives. They ARE the life. Of the kind we make together. And I'd rather have life with people in it, than success without the mess.

To quote the beautiful Karl from Love, Actually: "Life is full of interruptions and complications."

If I think I'm too great to be distracted by another human being, then I'm hardly great at all.

(And OF COURSE, you should insert the logical disclaimer here, about some tasks and some days requiring us to throw off distractions. OF COURSE there are times when choosing the better part means choosing NOT to be distracted. I speak to the phrase more as a mantra for life than as a daily task guide. And as a mantra, I think you're getting that I think it sucks.)

As I struggle to keep equilibrium in a new season, without a clear sense of rhythm or pace, yet, I'm quitting self help slogans cold turkey. 'Cause they aren't helping.
...As if I could help myself, all by myself, anyway. That's why I'm a Jesus-believer. A God-follower. I have come to the understanding that my strength is in weakness. That my humility - not my achievement - brings me hope. That rest is mine for the asking, no matter what my to-do list looks like -- and no matter what actually gets done.

I'm quitting self help to go with soul help, instead. I figure prayer and gratitude stand a better chance of soothing my soul. And if any fellow journeyers want to ask God for my current case of the mean reds to fade away, I thank you for your prayers, too.

Etch A Sketch Life

Remember Etch a Sketch? That magical toy with the big red frame and the two white knobs -- vertical and horizontal -- and those thin gray lines that followed the whirl of the dials, snaking across the screen?

As a kid, I was fascinated by my Etch A Sketch. I felt a love, and then a hate for it.

Because here's the problem: You cannot selectively erase on the Etch A Sketch. It's an all or nothing proposition.

Those lines are created by aluminum powder inside, scraped away by a stylus that constantly touches the screen, so that it leaves a connected trail of every spot it's been. Creating with an Etch a Sketch was so unlike drawing with crayons, where I could lift the tips off the page, leave gaps and spaces between strokes. When I drew with my Etch A Sketch, every jot and tittle had to touch what came before and after. For a perfectionist kid, this was like a cursive handwriting assignment from hell.

While I sensed the shortcoming immediately, it took a while for me to turn on my new toy. At first, I was so continually impressed at the thing, wondering just how it worked. (Look: Pre-tech tech!) Plus, there was the challenge of translating the free-form ideas in my head onto a screen with only two precise and rigid directions... irresistibly hard! I got really good at diagonal lines, because they required manipulating both dials simultaneously. Perfect diagonals and, then... CIRCLES!... felt like I had outsmarted my Etch A Sketch.

I was probably a few months in when I hit the wall. And it wasn't the constant connecting lines that finally did it. It was the inability to backspace. Even a little. The lack of any way to reverse and UNDO on the Etch A Sketch.

You may remember this frustration, too. When you were deep into a picture and some little stroke went astray. Your grip slipped. And your drawing point ended up far from where you wanted it. You could either leave a record of the mishap and backtrack across the screen -- or shake the thing vigorously to wipe it ALL clean. The only "erase" was a total reboot.

And, boy, did I do a lot of rebooting. THAT was what finally soured me on the Etch A Sketch. Too much time gone, when I was deep into some intricate design, slipped up, and felt like I had to start over. I was forever starting over. And, finally, I never started at all.

...I did mention I was a perfectionist, right? A very high-achiever. That is, when all the lines of my life converged just right.

Roughly 36 years and several steps of Perfectionism & Achievement Recovery later, I find myself at a very Etch A Sketch moment. My zealous love of new challenges has been tempered by time and exhaustion, but on the plus side, my deep hate for mistakes has been replaced with deeper understanding. I want to do SOMETHING, even knowing I can't always do it excellently. I want to leave a trail, even accepting I won't always like what's left behind.

It never was the device -- or just the device -- that bugged me so deeply. It was the idea of the thing. And the thing was life. Unfair life, with all its messy bits, asides and gone-astrays that we must live through, and leave records of, and don't get to shake off our internal screens.

Because there are no selective erases in LIFE, either. We start to doodle, then we learn to draw, and all along, all that we add goes right on top of what was already there... every jot and tittle connected to what comes before and after.

We are who we are in a continuum. So that, yes, we can change direction and begin to redraw our pictures at any time -- but we don't get to wipe away every errant lifeline. The bad parts; the good parts; they're all just THERE. In the history we make. And since they're all connected, we mostly can't clear the bad without losing the good.

I've been at this Etch a Sketch life for a while now. I moved past perfection paralysis and tried a few things. The bummer? They didn't all go as planned. And still aren't going. The outlying lines are a little messy. And I have wanted few things more than to VIGOROUSLY SHAKE THE LIFE when the picture looked marred to me. When I thought the mess was more than I could endure. I have deeply wanted to wipe that slate and start over.

I've especially wanted to start over on MYSELF, backtracking on the talents that are most deeply mine from God. Waiting to start creating or expressing, because I'm not good enough to craft something without backtracks... fits and starts, and plenty of stops. For a long time, I've been thinking that an empty slate of creation is better than a messy, incomplete slate with stray lines and unpolished thoughts. That's really too bad, that kind of thinking, so I'm working to change it. Because I was made to sketch.

I last wrote in this blog in 2011. I stopped when I felt I didn't have the time to do any good work here, anymore. {Yep. HERE. In this total backwater of the Internet, with no intent to ever "go big" or "go public," with maybe 8 readers who have to be friendlies to even find me, with no deadlines and NO pressure and NO expectations.} What I didn't have time for, anymore, was perfectly orchestrated pictures. I knew I was presenting rankly amateur writing and I didn't like thinking of myself as an amateur.

And so, without a strategy or a plan -- and no news skills -- I'm back. To show up and etch out a thin vertical line as my personal flag in the sand. I don't expect a do over; I accept life's all or nothing terms. And I would rather create imperfectly than never start again, at all.

With words. With everyday experiences. With emotions bigger and more universal than me. With these things, I was made to sketch. ...Wanna watch while I draw you something?